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Summer Vibin'

(Click the link above for my full Summer Vibin' 2016 Newsletter + to subscribe for more)!

ALOHA yogis!

I wanted to share with you a blog post I wrote a few years ago titled, "Why Yoga?" We are living in a time when there is a lot of hate and violence, but there remains a lot of love.

Question: How do we improve the world? Answer: By improving ourselves to start.

Why Yoga?

The purpose of stepping onto your yoga mat is to feel good. Yes, there is also the mind-body challenge, but ultimately the hope is that when you roll up your mat after practice – you feel better. It’s really that simple.

You leave your mat feeling better, lighter, and happier. Your practice puts those heavy perceived challenges in life into perspective because for 75-minutes of your day (or however long your practice might be), you can’t think of them; you are focused on much more important things - like how to balance on one foot or float from down dog to crow. You know you can get through whatever it is you are going through because you just held a handstand for 60-bleeping-seconds!

How often is it possible to completely clear your head of the frenzy of thoughts, to-do-lists, and worries that generally take over your mind? Well, if you are breathing deeply, in the moment, in a handstand, I assure you – your to-do-list will be waiting for you when you are done. There will be no space to be running through errands or planning dinner while balancing on your hands or head upside down.

This is why, initially, the postures are so important. You learn the alignment and breath in the postures, so that you can arrive to the place where thoughts and

worries are no longer holding center stage. Only after the postures are learned and this space and freedom in the mind is felt, can you find the space, calm, and focus to surrender in savasana or find a seated mediation. In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (basic principles and teachings of yoga compiled around 2,000 years ago), the purpose of the asanas (postures) is to make the body fit and prepared to take a seat (meditation). And this is how it works for me. My mind is always on and running, and my way of slowing it down is through connecting to my physical body and thus also the subtle body. By connecting to my body, I am able to connect within myself on a deeper level. Until eventually, after consistent and deligent practice, you might not need to move through the body to connect with the mind and the subtle body.

In essence, your yoga makes you feel strong, whole, beautiful, and full of love, from the inside out. Starting from wherever you are today, you know that in one week’s time, however small the progress might be that it is there. Breath by breath, posture by posture, you are healing, growing, and nurturing your entire body, mind, and soul.

All at once, you face head on your toughest critic and your biggest advocate - you. And as the weeks pass, you really do begin to feel lighter. You walk with a little more pep in your step. You stand a little taller. You begin to see more love around you and feel even more love within you. Your practice transforms your life. Your practice becomes more about nurturing your trust in love, kindness, and acceptance. Your practice builds trust from within. And as months pass, you begin to realize, to know, from the bottom of your heart, that you yourself are a gift. No one else in this world is exactly like you, and for this reason alone - find a smile and run with it.

Enjoy your next practice, because you can!

laura mary

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mochi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

  • Mochiko, 1 box
  • Almond Milk (Soy or Coconut work as well), 450ml
  • Safflower Oil, 150 ml
  • Maple Syrup, 150 ml
  • Himalayan salt, 1/2 tsp
  • Baking Powder, 2 tbs
  • Coco Powder, 7-8 tbls

Preparation

  • Mix the dry ingredients together
  • Mix the wet ingredients together
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients
  • Lightly, lightly, oil the pan (brownie pan)
  • Cook from 15-30 minutes (I have a small oven which requires a shorter cook time)

**My most recent batch was incredibly yummy and moist, I added some more safflower oil to make the batter more liquid**

Enjoy!

laura mary

 

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Twists_LMF

Everyone loves a twisting class, in fact, yesterday my Sunday workshop class consisted of a lot of twists as our focus was on binding. I definitely don’t want to make baseless claims that lack scientific evidence, but for teachers and students alike it is always an interesting practice between trusting what you feel in your body over what the Western medical evidence for yoga benefits might reveal. There is a major lack of research in this area, at least on a larger scale. I studied yoga benefits in grad school but only for a small cohort of around 30 yogis.

Let’s dive deeper in the topic of twists, the alignment, benefits, contraindications, and myths.

What is physically happening in a twist? The action of twisting, rotates the spine and helps to stretch the muscles throughout the back body. A safe twisting practice will help to restore the spine’s natural range of motion. If we don’t continue to practice finding our spine’s natural range of motion, we could, not surprisingly, lose some of that mobility, our joints may harden or even fuse. The supportive muscles around the spine can also become shortened, however, if we practice daily twists we can maintain full mobility and function.

There are some really important fundamentals of twisting, and the most important is the action of lengthening the spine before adding any physical rotation or twist. The inhale breath coincides with the action of lengthening so as to create space between the vertebrae. When there is little space or length between vertebrae the spine may slump or have a pinching sensation. Additionally, the sushumna nadis lies along the spine, our major channel of energy flow, through all 7-chakras or our bulbs of energy. If there is a stop in the flow of our energy, it’s no bueno for our state of mind, we might feel our energy levels drop, or even our mood. A twist on your yoga mat will help you lengthen your spine and eventually create space between the bones, so that our energy can flow more efficiently through our sushumna nadis. The immediate benefit from a twist is energy as we safely lift and decompress the vertebrae.

I love to sequence twists throughout a yoga practice, but especially at the end of a more focused class, such as a workshop on back-bending or forward folds. Twists are neutralizing postures, as they engage your core, abdominals, obliques, and the synergistic muscles that support different movements of your spine, shoulders, pelvis, and neck. Twists are a whole body effort. Be very wary if you enter a twist without a long spine and or without steady breathing, it means that something is off.

Now for the piece I really want to cover, do twists really aid in digestion? You’ve probably heard in class after class, twists are “detoxifying,” “great for digestion,” “cleaning your insides,” or maybe even “wringing out your internal organs,” etc. Before or after a big food holiday, such as Thanksgiving, you will definitely see a twisting class up on the schedule. What do all of these claims actually mean? And are they claims or truth? Twists create movement through our torso, including, in and around our organs, so they do help speed things up in terms of digestion by encouraging our food along.

BKS Iyengar believed that twists are detoxifying because of the squeeze and soak action. The organs of detoxification and elimination are compressed pushing out old blood, when we release the twist fresh blood can flow in. This is widely accepted in the yoga world, but like many things in life, there is some healthy debate on this topic.

Others suggest that the concept of the ‘squeeze and soak’ action is not that accurate. “Twists do affect our mobility (movement of organs in relation to each other) and our motility (movement within an organ). However a number of factors are involved in stimulation of our organs” (Yoga Anatomy, Matthews).

It would be safe to say that twists help stimulate our circulation to our organs, including our organs of elimination, which in turn can help stimulate our metabolism and rate of excretion.

Perhaps twists aren’t literally “wringing out the internal organs” just as in a backbends aren’t literally “opening your heart” but there is a grain of truth to both metaphors as we certainly feel energetic releases to the organs of that particular area and they can be helpful guiding metaphors for us on our mats, to deeply connect to the posture and its intention.

I usually start off every class by asking my students if they have any requests, and one of my students always says, “well, you know I am pro-twists, as always!” (I adore her). After a long day at the office, sitting, traveling, just living, here are some good reasons to insert twists into your daily life. Twists stimulate circulation, they create heat, release tension in the muscles of the spine, abdomen and rib cage which has a carryover effect of helping the other systems in the body work effectively.  

There are countless twisting postures and they could be seated, standing, or supine. A supine twist stabilizes the upper body, therefore allowing the twist to happen through the lower spine by rotating the pelvis and legs. Be sure to draw your belly in and keep both shoulders grounded. In a seated or standing twist we must both ground ourselves and lengthen through the spine, draw your belly up and in so as to stabilize the pelvis and low back. If seated root down through the sitting bones and if your back rounds, prop yourself up onto a bolster, blanket, or block to maintain the natural length and curvature of your spine before adding in a twist.

Both students and teachers should be aware that different parts of the spine have different ranges of mobility. Knowing this takes some self-imposed pressure off of yourself that you “should be” somewhere you are not or quite frankly somewhere you will never be. Your body will tell you where you need to be, but if that isn’t good enough, know that anatomically your spine will have varying degrees of mobility. The lumbar spine rotates only about 5 degrees, the thoracic spine rotates about 35 degrees, and the cervical spine rotates about 50 degrees (Yoga Anatomy, Kaminoff). Practice very mindfully, and work the whole spine into your twist, with all of its degrees of mobility, be patient and kind to yourself. Start with the low body, and work your way on up, allow your neck to twist very last. If your body is restricting a movement, don’t force it, breathe, be present, listen to your body’s wisdom and adapt your posture.

There is also some debate about what is going on in the pelvis and hips in your twist. Some yoga instructors will say the hips should be completely level or if seated, that the sitting bones should be completely fixed to the floor in a twist. This would make for a deeper twist in the more mobile areas of the spine, ie thoracic. However, if you are doing this rather than just engage your quads, you must really draw the thigh bones into the hip sockets. Because the other school of thought is that it is easier on the SI joint to let the opposite hip to the side you are twisting lift slightly, and this is a much more natural movement for the body. As you know, hips are not only the largest joint, but it is a big area of injury for yogis. Twists are contraindicated if you are pregnant! Skip the twisting portion of class if you are pregnant. There are other modifications you can take if you fall into this category.

If you are in a twist, aligned well, comfortable through the hips, shoulders, etc., you might be ready to deepen your expression with a bind. Twists open the back, shoulders, and chest nicely. Let’s cover binding on another day. Let your takeaways today be: listen to your body, breathe, lengthen through your spine before adding any rotations, and stay present.

Happy twisting!

With Love,

laura mary

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Wanderlust, Goals, and Yoga!

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ALOHA yogis!

For the first time ever, I taught at Wanderlust Festival on the North Shore of Oahu. It was a blast. I taught a workshop on "Vision, Goals, and Mantra Development." It was a new fresh topic for me to share with everyone, a topic that I've become so passionate about and practice everyday. It has some yogic principles tied in, but at Wanderlust I outlined a path to arriving at your truest vision and goals. I was nervously excited to teach at such a famed event; it was new territory for me, which is always scary, so I knew I had to be there, and all in no less. At the end of my workshop, Lululemon asked me to be their ambassador! I was so excited to teach at this festival. Here are some photos from my workshop.

Wanderlust got me so excited for my upcoming retreat. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to create magic like that again for my students at my Go Deeper yoga retreat on the Big Island in Kapa'au (May 27 - June 1). We will practice yoga and dive into a lot of juicy vision and goals work as well. There will be lots of free time to hike and explore, and the food is all sourced from the retreat center's on site organic farm. There are still spots available. Use my VIP code "VIP10" at checkout until Wednesday to receive 10% off!

alc_d21

With Love,

laura mary

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GoDeeperYogaRetreat

I am so excited to offer a 5-night, 6-day long retreat on the beautiful Big Island of Hawaii. The retreat is set on the north shore in Kapa'au from May 27th - June 1st, 2016 (Memorial Day Weekend).

I am combining all of my favorite things into one unforgettable week:

  • Daily sweaty yoga sessions morning and evening.
  • Daily sunset meditation/yin.
  • Daily goal coaching (optional).
  • 3 organic meals daily sourced from the site's farm.
  • Swag bag just for you.
  • Hiking (trails throughout the property).
  • Leisure time to journal, read, socialize, connect.
  • Spacious yurt bungalows.
  • Airport transportation.
  • Pool.

Sounds incredible right? It will be if you manage to grab a spot: The trip is OPEN for bookings.

Sign up today: Register Here!

If you have any questions, give me a call at (339)222-2903 or send me an email at [email protected]!

Do you think you can make it?

Laura Mary

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chia seed parfait

Chia seeds pack a punch when it comes to nutrition. One ounce of chia seeds is equivalent to 18% of your daily calcium need. They are loaded with fiber, antioxidants, and omega-3 fatty acids. As you know, both dietary fiber and omega-3 fatty acids are used to help lower blood pressure and generally to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke (cardiovascular disease). Start your day with this deliciously healthy chia seed parfait. You can make it the night before and let it sit over night, it will be the perfect breakfast! Just so you know, I am calling it a parfait because I like that word better than pudding. If you layer the fruit within it becomes more parfait-like! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons of chia seeds

1 cup of almond milk

1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of maple syrup

1 dash of cinnamon

*Add as many blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and bananas  as you like to top the parfait with or layer within the parfait, up to you!

Directions

Combine all of the ingredients and mix together. Place the parfait (sealed) in the refrigerator for at least 5 hours. To be honest, I take it out sooner to get started, because it is just so good! Check the texture of the parfait, and consume once you've reached your desired texture, you might want to add more almond milk or chia seeds depending on what you like. Option to serve with fresh fruit on top and an extra dash of cinnamon.

**You may need to consult your doctor if you eat this regularly, as it has been known to lower your blood pressure. If you take blood pressure medicine, consult your doctor.**

With Love,

laura mary

 

 

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NotWhattheDoctorOrdered

I have a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree. In graduate school, I learned all about the structure of health care in the United States and internationally. It is my opinion that a requirement or practicum experience (though unethical), should have been to create a fake injury and attempt to bounce our way through the real-life hurdles of Health Care in America. Alright, so I don’t really think this should have been a requirement, but I can say that I’ve learned so much from my experiences this past year. Given the recent article published in the Star Advertiser on Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I wanted to share some of my thoughts and opinions with you.

Where do I begin? I’ve rewritten the first sentence of this opinion piece several times. Mainly because it is such a personal and heated topic for me, as I have both been personally impacted and I have so much compassion for those who are in potentially life and death situations and are denied MRI scan privileges. Here is what is going on: “Hawaii Medical Service Association is imposing a new pre-authorization requirement that doctors say is delaying critical imaging tests and resulting in harmful consequences for patients.” (Kristen Consillio, January 24th, 2016).

Denying MRI scans, CT scans, and cardiac-related procedures to lower costs is a big mistake. Dr. Christopher Marsh, a Honolulu-based internal medicine physician says, “Now HMSA routinely denies most heart and X-ray tests. They think or assume your doctor doesn’t know what he/she is doing, and is too stupid to competently order tests on our own. Or is a criminal, gaming the system, and benefiting illegally from ordering tests.” Now instead of your doctor making the decision on whether you get to have an MRI, an Arizona-based company is making the decision for you. Of course this delays the whole entire process, and for many patients, they can’t afford to wait. If they are at high risk for a heart attack, they can’t wait the 30-days to get approval for a “potentially life-saving, commonly accepted heart test,” said Marsh a Honolulu doctor.

I think it is interesting that Elisa Yadao, HMSA senior vice president points out “Millions of health care dollars are spent each year on unnecessary medical care that doesn’t improve the community’s health and well-being,” why are MRI scans and other image scans cut from coverage? Has HMSA analyzed total spending for pharmaceutical drugs? Drugs which often mask symptoms of a larger problem. Sure, I could take a pain-killer drug to mask my ankle pain, but that wouldn’t fix the problem (torn tendon) and it might cause other problems (drug addiction, constipation, etc.). Denying privileges for a diagnostic procedure seems unjust to me.

HMSA argues that having this pre-authorization process in place will “further reduce the number of unnecessary tests, therefore improving patient safety and more efficiently controlling costs.” Will costs really improve if physicians who want to truly protect their patients send their patients instead to the Emergency Room, because they feel obliged to based on the Hippocratic Oath, first do no harm. In the words of Marsh, “I have no stake in ordering these tests. In most of these cases it would be malpractice not to get them. It’s been a huge stress and strain on our staff and it harms patient care.” Patients are suffering by having care delayed in an effort to save HMSA money.

Here is a little back story to explain why this is an issue of concern for me. Last April 2015 my ankle really started bothering me. For a few months, I dealt with the pain and discomfort because I’ve had it in the past and I didn’t want to deal with the headache of health insurance and simply couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket fees for doctor visits and procedures. In June 2015, I finally had to see a doctor. I had an X-ray, which as you know an X-ray can only reveal so much. I was misdiagnosed with arthritis of all things, I kind of moped around saddened by the poor treatment options and outcomes for such a diagnosis. However, I really had a hunch that my problem was tendon related, because when I moved my ankle joint, I heard and felt a clicking.

In order to get an MRI, even pre HMSA’s pre-authorization requirement, it was a costly and inconvenient process that would likely deter those who didn’t have a real problem. I had to first go to my internist to get a referral for both the MRI and to see an orthopedic surgeon, talk about unnecessary spending. I got my MRI, and the report revealed a long list of tissue problems with my ankle. It also revealed that the bones were healthy and arthritis free. It was clear from the MRI report that I needed to have reconstructive surgery to repair a large longitudinal split tear in my tendon (which was the clicking noise I heard) and that I needed to essentially tighten the stretched out ligaments from my history of ankle trauma (broken fibula and tibia, and countless sprains through high school sports and college). In short, if I hadn’t received my MRI, I would have not only worsened the torn peroneus brevis tendon but with very little stability in the ankle due to stretched ligaments, I could have broken a bone, or worse really started to develop arthritis. It seemed to me, that even before this pre-authorization business, there were already several hurdles in place for patients who were clinically advised to get an MRI.

My MRI corrected the false arthritis diagnosis I had received and the fact is without the MRI, I would be in a lot worse shape, both mentally and physically. I am thankful, I jumped through the health insurance loop before this pre-authorization rule was put into place. Because had I decided a few months later to begin the process of diagnosing and designing a treatment plan for my ankle, it would have begun (by necessity of HMSA) with physical therapy for one month. Before any joint MRI, HMSA is requiring the patient to have physical therapy for four weeks. According to Linda Rasmussen, a Kailua orthopedic surgeon, “This is a major problem. The PT will cost more than the MRI or knee surgery. The insurance companies are spending more money trying to micromanage physician decisions. This leaves less money for direct patient care. It is a huge waste of money.” Not to mention, as the Star Advertiser pointed out, it is impacting the finances of imaging centers because fewer tests are approved.

Doctors simply do not have time to deal with the administrative headache of all of this pre-authorization, not to mention they don’t get paid for it, and it undermines their expertise and medical practice. Dr. Scott McCaffrey, an occupational medicine specialist and president-elect of Hawaii Medical Association says, “This new measure is undermining the economic well-being of major imaging centers in our state as well as the hospitals. For all those reasons it’s neither good medicine nor good cost control.” So this begs the question, why? Perhaps this new rule will deter those that are in bearable pain to continue trudging through their pain, until next year when perhaps the rule will change and their condition or ailments have likely worsened, and all for what? A few dollars (perhaps) saved in 2016; HMSA will be paying thrice that in 2017, thrice!

Before the Star Advertiser published “Not What the Doctor Ordered” on January 24th, 2016, I found out first hand about the poor rule change. After compensating from my right ankle pain and bearing more weight on my left ankle, changing my standing posture, my normal gait, etc., my left ankle (the formerly healthy one), was really achy and bothering me. I went to see a local orthopedic surgeon and he said, I’d need an MRI, however, he broke the news to me on December 7th, that I would first need to go through 4-weeks of PT prior to receiving an MRI. Now, I was not about to do this for many reasons, one being that I was healing my right ankle and beginning PT for that in a few weeks. Furthermore, I had just paid my entire $6k plus deductible and was not about pay the $1k plus fee for an MRI after 4 additional weeks of PT. As an HMSA member, who had actually met the full deductible (how many people actually meet it?), I felt it was unfair for the pre-authorization rule to be instated 1-month before the year end. On January 1st my deductible was to be reset to zero and I would be responsible for any services thereafter. If I am unable to switch health insurance coverage any time outside of open-enrollment, HMSA shouldn’t be able to change the stipulations of the plan I signed up for outside of that same time period. It’s only fair.

Just because 30% of imaging is “non-value-added,” doesn’t mean I am apart of that 30%. What about the 70% who need the MRI? Especially given that my last MRI was certainly adding value in the form of a concrete diagnosis and a full reconstructive surgery. If I said to my local orthopedic, okay, I will acquiesce in order to get the MRI, I will do 4-weeks of PT; this poor decision could potentially worsen my condition. I wasn’t born yesterday, without an MRI and knowledge of my condition, I will not begin PT. Perhaps this is what HMSA is hoping for: no logical person will take a shot in the dark and begin PT without a definitive diagnosis. This strategy will lead to cost savings in the short-term, but inevitably delayed treatment costs in the long-term which are likely to be higher due to postponed treatment.

In 2015, I had my first real interaction with health insurance companies and the process of navigating myself through the mess of it. I’ve learned to read between the lines, to ask for everything in writing, to confirm coverage prior to any and all procedures, and more than anything to stand up for myself. As a paying customer, you deserve to be treated adequately and with respect. If you have a question, ask! This year was a huge learning experience for me. I have an MPH degree and it was a headache to get answers. If you don’t stand up for yourself, no one else will.

As a country we need to make health care coverage easier to navigate, for everyone; if we all have to purchase health insurance, we should actually be able to get coverage when we need it, and it shouldn’t be a battle between you and the physicians versus the insurance company. We need to work together to make all parties happy. That is my two cents, fingers crossed that HMSA changes this ludicrous pre-authorization rule before people really get hurt.

I know this wasn't my typical "happy, life is good, I love yoga and vegan food" type of post, but it needed to be said. I hope you enjoyed!

With Love,

laura mary

 

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handstand

 

We are all blessed with a powerful mind-body connection. Sometimes we lose touch and disconnect. Whether our disconnection happens by consuming food until our stomach hurts, playing a sport despite having an injury which should have sidelined us, or acting in one way when our gut is recommending another course of action, we’ve all been there and can relate. Sometimes we are connected. We can meditate ourselves into a state of peace, love, and abundance. As we move through life, it’s likely that we are transitioning in and out of this connected state of mind and body. Yoga is the practice of connecting the mind and body, of ‘yoke’-ing, of finding a union between the mind, body, and soul. I am a firm believer in the idea that we are all in a practice, practice not perfection. Inevitably, we will fall out of connection, and in those moments there is a valuable lesson to be learned. It’s up to us to constantly be checking ourselves in order to stay in the flow of connection. If we stay vigilant, not only do we learn the lesson, but we can then bring ourselves back to connection. Allow me to explain what I mean.

When I was a little girl, I slammed my middle finger in a door...three times. The first time it happened, I had stitches. The second time was at a field trip to a Japanese restaurant. The third time was in the hinge of a large, dense fire door that led to my family’s garage. Upon further thinking, I believe it was four times because there was also a car door slamming incident in there somewhere. Anyways, as you can imagine, in my finger’s attempt to heal, I had a vicious sore grow. I was still quite young, all of this middle finger trauma happened in elementary school. I went to the doctor, he froze off the growth and I was left with a small wound.

I will never forget what the doctor said at this visit. He said, “I want you to look at this finger, everyday, and say, I hate you wound and I want you to go away.” At first I thought the doctor was joking, I laughed, but he was not joking. My homework was to in fact look at my finger and repeat this saying several times a day. He had me repeat the saying in front of him a few times to practice and he made sure I made eye contact with my finger. The doctor was very clear and adamant on this homework assignment and even pointed out how effective this treatment had proven with patients in the past. My wound healed and I thought it was because of my persistent requests for the wound to go away, I had followed my doctor’s instructions and done my homework.

Flash forward 20 years and here I am getting ankle surgery. You would think as a yogi, I would have the utmost trust in the process, in my body’s ability to heal, and that perhaps everything went beautifully. Surprise, it went much better as an 8-year-old than it did as a 28-year old. As an 8-year old, I was blindly following the instructions of my doctor, I had complete faith in adults, in my parents, and in the process. As a 28-year, I wanted answers. I wanted to know how every single ligament was detached and reattached, what the tendon repair process entailed, where the incisions would be made, what the healing process looked like, what the pain level was supposed to be, should I really say yes to the nerve block, and exactly how high should I be elevating my ankle? The list went on and on...I was kind of a nightmare patient. Well, maybe I was, maybe all adults are this way, maybe this was normal, I didn’t know. What I did know was that as an adult, I could see how socialized I was to fear. I had become socialized to the fear that something might go wrong. And it did.

My ankle became incredibly swollen and I had to remove the splint cast early due to pressure, which caused more swelling. Did I create this through my worrisome and distrusting thinking? Perhaps. The truth is, I was scared. I didn’t like the feeling of not being in control of my body. As an athlete, I didn’t like not being able to walk and disliked having to ask for everything. I didn’t like not knowing what the trajectory of normal healing was, I had no point of reference for myself. I wasn’t present. I didn’t want to have surgery, I needed to have surgery. There was no choice, and consequently, my mind was wandering and filled with doubts. Even with my best attempts to stay positive it was hard. I was a bit of a head case through the initial healing phase, until my doctor stepped in. He gave me a crystal clear speech on positivity. Here is a summary of what he told me:

You know this from your profession as a yoga instructor - the mind and body are linked. You need to be positive. You need this positivity for your healing. Stop doubting. Trust the process. If you have a negative thought, throw it away. Be positive.

After my doctor finished his speech, I took a quick glance at the list of questions I was prepared to ask him (not the most positive list) and decided that perhaps I better flip the page over. I turned over a new page, literally and figuratively.

And there began my practice, keyword - practice. I wanted to bring back connection. I had lost my mind-body connection. From that moment on, I went about my day with the intention of maintaining positivity throughout. Whenever I slipped away from my positive healing thoughts, my Mom stepped in and reminded me to maintain my positive outlook. Guess what, it worked and continues to work! Day by day I am getting better. Whether this is magic, the placebo effect, or time, it is working.

Thinking is medicine and the placebo effect demonstrates this because 30% of patients who receive a sugar pill rather than a prescription drug have a positive response to treatment. The thought and belief that you are getting better, makes you better! There is so much power in your thinking. As a yogi, I know that your thoughts become things. You create the world you live in through your thoughts. Your thoughts, create the lens with which you view the world. Currently, I have no option but to trust the process. If something went wrong, it already went wrong, and me worrying about how the surgery was performed while I was knocked out under anesthesia will only hurt the healing process. I knew that I needed to be present, and I needed to bring myself back into the space of connectedness in order to properly heal. Simply by disconnecting and worrying, I was doing a disservice to the healing process.

I am so thankful that my doctor stepped in and gave me a dose of my own yogic medicine, he reminded me that my thoughts matter. I found agency in my healing because I decided to embrace positivity in order to expedite my healing process. Because I understood that powerful thoughts have the ability to transform and create the world I live in. Just as I did as an 8-year old, I decided to again speak out loud to myself, “You are doing great! Heal ankle, heal, heal, heal!”.

Positive psychology was founded on this principle, the idea that we can change our negative thoughts, simply by focusing instead on positive growth. It has proven to be an effective treatment for illness. Different researchers are connecting patients’ relationships to spirituality with positive healing related to chemical changes in disease, from cancer, to HIV, to minor wound healing. The effect of positive thinking in the healing process is profound.

As I reflect on the healing experience of my minor wound as an 8-year old and compare it to my major ankle reconstructive surgery as a 28-year old, I am able to borrow the characteristics I demonstrated from my 8-year old self (trust, belief, and love over fear) and practice them now. As an 8-year old, I was unencumbered with fear, I trusted that the world was good and just and that everything would happen as it was intended to. Moreover, through the repetition of my healing mantras, my 8-year old self, unknowingly reinforced a devout belief in the healing energy of my body and mind; my 28-year old self is knowingly applying that principle - that the body was built to heal - through the repetition of similar healing mantras. I am no longer standing in my own way. I’ve realigned my mind, body, and spirit. I’ve said yes to embracing the gnarly healing process. I don’t want to inhibit my own healing. Honestly, because I felt more connected to my body, I allowed, pressure free, the healing to take over. I took pressure off of myself, because I held the positive belief that my body is functioning with my own best interest in mind. There is nothing I needed to control. I needed to let go. I needed to believe. I needed to maintain my body, mind, and spirit connection in order to facilitate healing. My body is not separate from my mind, nor my soul. They are all connected. We are all connected.

Ultimately, connection is what this life is all about. We cannot expect to find positive connections with others, when we lose our connection to ourselves. Perhaps this injury was a part of my journey to show me just how powerful the connection we seek in yoga and life can be. Our connection is everything. If we lose it, we must find it again. Just as a healthy ankle is important for optimal health so too is a healthy mind, body, and spirit connection. I lost my connection, because I was in a space of fear and distrust, and I probably slowed my healing down. I had a wakeup call from my Doctor and I found my connection again, and from there my healing took off. If you are in the process of healing, I encourage you to start by focusing on your connection. Reestablish the union of your mind, body, and spirit and watch yourself get better.

Ever more connected now than ever, I can honestly say, running, yoga, hiking, and living, here I come. I’ve opened myself up to love and healing through connection and now the Universe is on board with my decision to heal.

With Gratitude,

laura mary

 

 

PS- I wish I could pay my respects and gratitude to that doctor I had as an 8-year old who instilled in me the beautiful practice of believing in yourself and for demonstrating the powerful mind-body connection. I am forever grateful to my orthopedic surgeon for reinforcing that lesson I learned as an 8-year old and for doing a top notch job with my surgery.

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Blog_Rumi

“Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.

Don’t try to see things through the distances. That’s not for human beings.

Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.

Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

-Rumi

My undergraduate alma mater’s slogan was “creative thought matters,” at the time, I admittedly thought the slogan was a bit silly. As I was more on team jock/science nerd in the division of our liberal arts campus. The large part of my school was composed of artists: musicians, studio artists, writers, and actors. Many go on to New York City and work in theatre or open an art studio.

With every year passing, I find myself more and more aligned with that slogan. Creative thought really does matter. We all have this wonderful and vibrant yet individual creative energy within us that we must unleash. We need to go within in order to not go without, in order to not go without realizing our potential. If you left that creative bulb of energy within merely settle at your core and in your heart, because you fear expressing yourself, you might never find out what you are capable of. For instance, if I had continued taking art classes through high school, who knows what I would be doing now. But I didn’t. None of my friends were enrolled in art classes, and as a teen who was part of a very close knit group of friends, I was scared to break away from that status quo.

Flash forward to college and there I was at a hippy dippy liberal arts school, where the art classes were graded so harshly that majority of students received C’s. In college, my fear was lowering my GPA and thus I never quenched that creative thirst. Post-college, I found myself lost without athletics, I found yoga. Really found yoga. I was committed to a daily practice and I wanted more. I was thirsty for knowledge, and I wanted to quench this spiritual thirst as well. I signed up for yoga teacher training, even though every fiber of my being was terrified. I was always nervous, incredibly nervous, of speaking up in classes from elementary school all the way to college. Despite feeling my stomach twisted up in knots, I managed to hold myself up in front of a class, and share my voice through teaching asanas (postures). The process of teaching yoga and expressing my creative thought, listening to my inner voice, and sharing it all has been incredibly healing for me.

Today, this Rumi quote has reminded me that we all need to stay creative, play music, paint, dance, write, and express ourselves somehow. Tap into the inner world within you, who so badly wants to express, wants to express something to the world. Whatever you do, don’t let fear stop you. Fear of not fitting in, fear of receiving a poor grade, fear of falling, and any other fear that you’ve conjured up in your head. Let it go. Let this creative thought and expression bring your closer to finding what you love, so that what you do on a daily basis is also what you love. Today, go within, so you don’t go without. Namaste.

With Love,

laura mary